we can vegan.

you don’t need a muffin man. you need this recipe.

16 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment

by Ellie Thomas in recipes

Trawling the internet for some good vegan muffin recipes, using items in the fridge that needed consuming, like, yesterday, I found a variety of recipes for vegan muffins. I haven’t had good experiences with vegan muffins in the past… to dense, too dry, too bland, too bi-carby… you name it.

I decided I would take a bunch of recipes and make my own and hope for the best. I am no baker. I believe all good baking is very scientific – which is something I am very not.

But I gave it a go. Great success! Sometimes in life, the ones of us who ‘wing it’ and don’t plan things, come out on top.

Try for yourselves! GET BAKING, YOU VEGANS!

apple and banana muffins.

2 cups of flour (I used 1 cup white self raising, one cup plain wholemeal – I find too much wholemeal makes things quite dense)

4 tsp baking powder

cinnamon – as much or as little as you like… I used about 1/2 tsp, for a hint of a cinnamon taste

1/2 cup sugar – I used organic vegetarian raw sugar

about 1/2 cup apple juice concentrate mixed with 1 cup water (one of the recipes asked for 1 1/2 cups of straight up apple juice, which I didn’t have, so I modified it to apple juice concentrate with good results)

1 apple, diced (I used canned apples, you could probably substitute with pears, blueberries, strawberries etc.)

2 mashed bananas

pre-heat oven to about 180 degrees celsius or 360F.

In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, cinnamon and sugar). Once mixed in together, add the apple juice concoction, mashed bananas and apple and mix it all around together.

Put the mix into a muffin tray and bake away! Mine were in for about 30 minutes, but it depends on your oven. They are sweet, moist and tasty!

a bad photo of good muffins

crumpetgate

30 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by Ellie Thomas in recipes

UPDATE!!!

Seriously breaking news! The failed batter mix made some wonderful bread!

I collected my sorry crumpet batter from it’s clingfilmy prison on my share-house allocated fridge shelf, balled it up, put it on some greaseproof paper and onto an oven tray. I set the temperature of the ancient gas oven to 180°C/356°F/453.15K and once it was adequately warm I put my crumpet-come-bread loaf in.

Wait about as long as it takes to download a movie via optical telegraph and then rescue this severely confused bread loaf out of the heat cube.

Mine tasted pretty good laden with vegan butter and my dear mother’s home made rhubarb jam. If it doesn’t work for you, well at least you tried. As for my relationship with the water/yeast/wholewheat flour/soy milk/salt/baking powder combo, we have a long way to go.

crumpety crump

29 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by Ellie Thomas in recipes

After searching high and low the shelves of the supermarket, I happened upon my favourite baked good, the crumpet. Vegans and omnivores alike, we tend to look at the back the pack to find out what is lurking in our processed foods – hence the reason why we try and stay away from them. So here I was, reading the ingredients of my long time crumpety friend, and found that there were some undisclosed numbers listed. This set me on a mission to make my own crumpets from scratch.

So… I have decided after this evening’s much failed crumpet making attempt – (recipe below… note DO NOT use wholemeal flour… it is too dense and you will end up with rock bread) I have realised that some things you must leave to the experts if you want to live a normal life and want to save the time spent in your dingy shared kitchen actually doing something worthwhile. For the cooks out there, this may be what you call worthwhile, and I am truly envious of that.

In my fact-finding mission today I discovered an additive that is in a lot of bread products is something by the number of  E910, 920 and 921 which is derived from the feathers of slaughtered ducks and chickens and in some cases, hair from humans. It is an anti-caking agent found in bakery products. The problem with this one, is that once the bread is cooked, there is no trace of this additive, so the companies using this additive are not legally bound to disclose it.

But if you call the company of your bready desire and hassle them, using the phrase ‘do you USE additive E910′ they should tell you. You can always ask to get it in writing. No one is going to lie on a company letterhead. We hope.

So a list I have sourced from various places detailing the main animal-derived additives to avoid.

E120: Cochineal (not so common these days), Carminic acid, Carmine, Natural Red 4

Cochineal is super gross – it is from the scales of pregnant female cochineal insects. The insect is boiled and it’s scales ground up to colour your foods. Other byproducts used during the red food colour process are fish glue, egg white and/or gelatin (which we come to down the list). These can be found in your soda, cordial, glace cherries, alcoholic bevvies and jams.

E542: Bone phosphate

This is an anti-caking agent found in dried instant coffee, potato chips and other processed snack foods. From the bones of our favourite types of animals.

E904: Shellac

From the Lac insect, and it is used as a glazing agent on foods. Lac no longer.

Casein (or caseinogen/caseinate):

This is derived from cow’s milk and is found in lots of soy cheeses and non-dairy creamers, so it can catch you unawares.

Gelatin:

From bones of cows, pigs, sheep, horse hooves… you name it. In most jellies (jell-o), marshmallows and confectionary. The only non-animal product of similar effect is called Agar Agar which is derived from kelp… and if it has agar agar in the product instead of gelatin, it will declare it happily.

This is only a small list, but I found a comprehensive one here – so have a good read.

http://www.veganwolf.com/animal_ingredients.htm

As for the crumpet recipe, which a dear friend gave to me with a fail-safe seal of approval, here ’tis. Word of warning, just use all purpose flour and not wholewheat… otherwise it will be too dense to be light and bubbly like crumpets should be.

Vegan Crumpets

2 cups all purpose flour

1 generous tsp yeast

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup soy milk, room temperature

1/2 cup water, room temperature

1 Tbsp vegan butter, melted

Mix all ingredients together at once. Use an electric mixer if you have one. I don’t have one and that could be partially to blame. Do this until the batter is smooth and then cover it for about an hour so the yeast can do it’s thing.

Heat up a frying pan and just use a little bit of vegan butter so your crumpets don’t stick. Use those circular rings and put the crumpet batter inside the ring in the pan. Otherwise it won’t stay in a circle and then it’s just not a crumpet. About 3 minutes both sides on a low-ish heat so you can cook all the way through without burning.

If you succeed, let us know.

I will be bold enough to post my failed crumpet picture, because I am not ashamed of my first attempt. It tasted good… it was just definitely not a crumpet. At all.

Crap-pet

you should eat something.

07 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment

by Ellie Thomas in recipes

I could so very easily live off SPC Baked Beans (English recipe) and toast for the rest of my life and be as happy as the chirpy birds taking liberty in the birdhouse and seeds I just put up on the balcony. In reality I am sure I would get bored of the delicious beanage after a few months but that gives you some idea of my food paradise. Mmm a baked bean dinner party. Anyone want to come over?

So, because I am afflicted with eternal laziness when it comes to the culinary arena I just want to eat whatever is on my allotted share-house pantry shelf with minimum effort. But I exercise a lot and I need energy in the form of nice healthy kilojoules to keep me functioning.

So every now and then I make the tastiest, easiest, laziest vegan curry (or ‘vurry’, as I like to make portmanteau words) from whatever staples one tends to have when the pantry is looking a little barren. This happens a lot for me because I hate going food shopping so I only go every few weeks — and I wonder why my food bill was so expensive.

You should try this dinner. It is totally humane and quick and oh-so-easy! AND! Anyone whom the word vegan frightens should realise this – a lot of the food you eat has no animal products in it. So deal with a vegan curry every now and then. You will like it.

Get a BIGass fry pan (one with tallish sides), and get an onion. Chop it. Put some extra virgin olive oil in the fry pan and heat it up. Sauté that onion of yours! Red, white, brown onion, who cares which, they’re all welcome in our kitchen.

Then get a block of firm tofu and cube it up and chuck it in.

Grab your spices! I use mild curry power, (it varies, anywhere between 1/2 to 3/4 TBSP) dump it in and stir it up. If it is all looking a little dry, get a little bit of water and throw it in the pan.

Add turmeric (however much you like – the yellower the better I say!) ground cumin and ground coriander and mix it up. Again, if it’s a little dry add a little bit of water.

Throw a tin of diced tomatoes in there and let that simmer while you battle with a can opener trying to open a can of lentils/chickpeas/black beans. I usually put a can of each in, and if I do that, the ratio of sauciness to legumes is usually off balance so I add an extra tin of tomatoes and let it simmer away happily. While this is all happening, steam or boil some veggies. Whatever is at the bottom of your veggie crisper… broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin… Whatever.

Once all is boiled, have a bit of a taste of the curry thing you have going… add more spices if you think that it isn’t curryish enough… (Go crazy… there are no rules) and then add those boiled veggies.

If you want to add some more protein to the meal boil some quinoa and have it as a good little companion. Or boil the heck out of some short grain brown rice for some tasty carbohydrates.

I usually make this on a Sunday arvo so that I have some meals for when I can’t be bothered later in the week.

By doing this you will be helping yourself in so many ways – clearing your fridge of soon to be mouldy veggies, your body with thank you – so will our furry friends and their livelihoods and you will be promoting the sustainability of the place you live.

I contemplated posting a picture here of the above. I didn’t want to frighten anyone. So please, just enjoy the below picture, knowing it is a lot prettier than my tasty albeit unattractive curry… which could be saying something.

I painted some happy mountains.